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Sherman expansion plans switch from stick-built to pre-fab

Time constraints forcing the construction change

By Jenni Grubbs

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
10/03/2017 05:14:52 PM MDT

The Morgan County School District Re-3 will be allowed to carry over to this fiscal year $2.6 million in federal grant funding awarded in 2016-17 for expanding the Head Start facilities housed at Sherman Early Childhood Center.

The Re-3 Board of Education on Monday night approved a request for carrying over that grant into this school year, with the continued intention of spending the federal funding to expand the Head Start facilities and using an estimated $500,000 in district funds to also add more kindergarten classrooms to the overall Sherman facility.

If all goes according to current plans, work on that expansion would start in March and be finished in time for the start of school next August.

The extra space is needed both for the Head Start program and a larger contingent of full-day students being funded by the federal government, along with the district needing more space for kindergarten classrooms for its growing pupil count at that grade level.

Re-3 Superintendent Ron Echols updated the school board on where plans currently stood for the construction project to expand the school facility, which is close to being ready to seek bid proposals.

But getting to this point has been complicated by multiple factors, he said, including that it is a project that is mostly funded by the federal government and subject to federal regulations but also with a local component.

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Perhaps the biggest challenge, though, is figuring out how to make everything work to ensure that the project can be completed in time for school to start in mid-August 2018, according to both Echols and Re-3 Chief Financial Officer Mike Lee.

Those considerations led the district to stop looking to construct a brick-and-mortar building and instead focus on pre-engineered, manufactured buildings for the facilities expansion, they said.

That switch could save considerable time in the permitting process, Echols said, but it also made the process to get initial bid proposals all the more complicated.

The superintendent explained that the district had to figure out how to make the bidding process fit within federal regulations while also looking to consolidate that usual process in order to gain time from using the pre-engineered building. The plan the school district and its owners representative have settled on is looking to consolidate two phases of the work to be bid on by prospective general contractors and consolidating some phases for the facility itself.

"And we believe that will meet the regulations from the feds for this process," Echols told the school board.

But this unusual bid process also will mean a somewhat longer wait before the project's overall estimated costs will be established.

"Hopefully we get enough input with the bidding process that we can get a better handle on the total cost," Echols said.

So far, the district has been working off of the $2.6 million amount of the federal grant and the current expectation of spending around $500,000 in district funding to add extra kindergarten classrooms to Sherman, as well, he said.

"Once we get the bids, the proposals, then we'll have a better cost, really what Re-3 might be expected to pay to complete this project," Echols said.

He also said he was curious to see how the bidding process would play out.

"It's really interesting to see how many people will actually come forth because they basically have to have bonding capability," the superintendent said. "Generally we obviously want a general contractor who has some experience and knowledge of pre-engineered buildings. We know we have one or two in our area who we think will have some legitimate interest and have the background and experience that we would like for this project. It will be interesting to see how many from outside the area actually have the interest and actually put in a bid."

He said that the district was starting with the Aug. 17, 2018, school start date and moving backward to try to figure out how soon the ground-breaking had to happen to be finished in time. The goal is to be able to start work on the project by March.

Echols told the school board that the district should soon have a schedule for the construction work at Sherman.

"We're pretty close now, I think, to hopefully having a workable calendar, so to speak, a construction calendar," he said.

School Board President Connie Weingarten directed Echols to make sure there was enough extra time built into that work calendar to accommodate any unexpected problems and not have to postpone the start of school.

"That's part of the consolidation purpose is because we think that's going to save us a few weeks in the construction time, too, or permitting time, whichever way you want to look at it," Echols responded. "So we think this is still the best process to go."

Still, he emphasized that the results of the district's request for proposals on the project would be "interesting to see" because this project would be "a whole different kind of animal going forward" from how school construction projects usually work.

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